Using Google Scholar Institutional Level Data to Evaluate the Quality of University Research

In recent years, the extent of formal research evaluation, at all levels from the individual to the multiversity has increased dramatically. At the institutional level, there are world university rankings based on an ad hoc combination of different indicators. There are also national exercises, such as those in the UK and Australia that evaluate research outputs and environment through peer review panels. These are extremely costly and time consuming. This paper evaluates the possibility of using Google Scholar (GS) institutional level data to evaluate university research in a relatively automatic way. Several citation-based metrics are collected from GS for all 130 UK universities. These are used to evaluate performance and produce university rankings which are then compared with various rankings based on the 2014 UK Research Excellence Framework (REF). The rankings are shown to be credible and to avoid some of the obvious problems of the REF ranking, as well as being highly efficient and cost effective. We also investigate the possibility of normalizing the results for the university subject mix since science subjects generally produce significantly more citations than social science or humanities

Serpentinite with and without brucite: A reaction pathway analysis of a natural serpentinite in the Josephine ophiolite, California

A partially serpentinized peridotite from the Josephine ophiolite has been studied in detail in order to characterize the chemical processes of its serpentinization. The original rock was harzburgite, and its olivine and orthopyroxene are partially replaced by veins and patches of lizardite serpentine and magnetite; brucite and talc are completely absent from the serpentinite, regardless of whether the precursor mineral was olivine or pyroxene. Petrographic and mineral-chemical data suggest at least two phases of serpentinization. Incipient serpentinization produced lizardite and magnetite veinlets, from preferential dissolution of orthopyroxene, and/or infiltration of a silica-rich fluid. No talc or brucite was produced, which suggests this serpentinization happened in a chemically open system. Later serpentinization was from a fluid closer to Fe-Mg-Si chemical equilibrium with the harzburgite, which should in theory favor formation of a brucite-bearing serpentinite. Brucite is absent from late serpentine veins, but they have some porosity which could represent former brucite that was dissolved out or was reacted out after serpentinization. Isocon modeling suggests that Si, Fe, and K were added during serpentinization and that Ca was lost; i.e., the serpentinization was not isochemical (except for H2O). Results of petrographic observations, thermodynamic modeling, and mass balance calculations were used to constrain the reactions for global serpentinization of the studied sample. These reactions indicate that water with a concentration of H2 up to two times that of deep sea vent fluids may have been produced during the serpentinization of the Josephine peridotite, which could then have been a potential host for significant biomass

From Preparedness to Recovery: A Tri-Level Programming Model for Disaster Relief Planning

This paper proposes a tri-level programming model for disaster preparedness planning. The top level addresses facility location and inventory pre-positioning decisions; the second level represents damage caused by the disaster, while the third level determines response and recovery decisions. We use an interdiction framework instead of a stochastic or chance-constrained model. This allows the extent of damage to be treated as a parameter to facilitate scenario exploration for decision-support. We develop an iterative dual-ascent solution approach. Computational results show that our approach is efficient, and we can also draw some insights on disaster relief planning. © 2013 Springer-Verlag.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex